Coffee and chocolate are often the first things that come to mind when someone utters the phrase “fair trade.” Yet there’s a wide array of cool stuff Torontonians can buy and feel confident the that the producers living in other parts of the world will receive a fair price for their efforts.
That’s what Toronto entrepreneur Rafik Riad set out to prove when he founded Canada’s first annual Fair Trade Show, which debuts Saturday, Nov. 29, and Sunday, Nov. 30, at the Gladstone Hotel.
With the help of the
Canadian Fair Trade Network and the
Fair Trade Federation, Riad has rounded up more than 15 merchants who will be selling items from more than 25 countries, including handmade jewellery from Nepal, organic olive oil from Palestine, wooden salad servers from Kenya and wines from Chile. Exhibitors are a mix of social enterprises, driven by both the bottom line and a social mission, and not-for-profit organizations.
“There’s been a lot happening on the raising awareness side of things. More and more students are having their campuses designated as fair trade, more and more cities are becoming designated as fair trade cities. But you don’t have so much happening on the supply side,” says Riad, whose social enterprise
SALT partners with organizations in developing countries to bring fair trade merchandise to the Canadian market. “I want to let Canadian consumers know that there is a fair trade version of everything that they might want to buy.”
Though mostly a marketplace, the event will provide some educational opportunities. Screenings of
Girl Rising and
Connected by Coffee will round out seminars by leaders in the fair trade world, including Renee Bowers, executive director of the the US-based Fair Trade Federation, and Brigitte and Robert McKinnon of Quebec-based Pure Art Foundation.
Riad hopes that it’s not only consumers who find things they want to buy at the show. “What I’d really, really love is to have a few retailers come in and decide to stock some of these products,” he says. “The goals we have of helping the people that we’re working with in places like Africa or Latin America only happen when we can generate volume.”
Writer: Paul Gallant
Source: Rafik Riad